


What Sharp Teeth You Have

by Her_Madjesty



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Belligerent Sexual Tension, Extended Wolf Metaphors, F/M, It's More About the Build Up, Longing, Lust, Masturbation, Pining, See Again: Tension, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 12:52:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12888264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Her_Madjesty/pseuds/Her_Madjesty
Summary: Wolves, Anya knows, are not inherently kind.





	1. Anya

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the "I Wanted to Write Smut, and It Still Got Delayed" show. I hope you enjoy the (slightly tempered) pretension and continued existence of Anya the Wilderness Child. 
> 
> The first chapter could be rated a solid M; E content appears in chapter two. If that's not your thing, you can leave the story were it is. 
> 
> Either way, enjoy!

Anya likes her tea with lemon, when she drinks it at all; the citrus curls her tongue, keeps things light and summer sweet. She longs for the warmth of it, now, stuck shivering between two Bolshevik officers as they march her past offices with ominous, closed doors. The room they lead her to is blocked off from the rest, and the moment she crosses the threshold, she’s awash with the bitter smell of steeping leaves.

Anya doesn’t allow herself to wrinkle her nose. She fixes her gaze, instead, on the figure of the deputy commissioner across the room. He cradles a telephone in one of his gloved hands and has his back to the door. His chuckle – short and biting – leaves Anya bristling.

Worse than that, it’s _warm_.

Anya clutches her hands at her sides and doesn’t allow herself to sink into the insulation of the room. All the same, it’s _good_. Better than the shadows of Petersburg – wait, no, _Leningrad_ – that she hides in when the sun sets. She’s filched cigarettes, before, when the nights grew too cold, and bummed matches off of the girls who live nearby just to chase this sort of heat. She doesn’t smoke, just holds the fire close to her and presses ash against her lips to keep them from chapping.

It’s harder, now that she’s not moving, to find pockets of warmth like these.

She flinches when the deputy commissioner hangs up his phone. He leans back against his desk and fiddles with his gloves: the picture of ease and confidence. “Apologies for the delay,” he says, face still turned away. “I’m glad that you could join me.”

With a wave of his hand, the deputy commissioner shoos Anya’s guards from the room. She turns with them as they go and catches a sliver of concern on one young face, a repressed smirk on the other.

The lock of the door clicks behind them.

Anya feels her pulse start to thunder.

“You’ve been causing quite a bit of trouble, haven’t you?” It’s a rhetorical question, she knows, so Anya maintains her silence. She faces the commissioner once more, tucking her hands behind her back as she claims a corner of the office for herself. Anger curls low in her belly and leaves her cheeks flushed. It’d be lovely if the deputy commissioner presented her with his back for the whole of her interrogation; barring that, she hopes he’ll dismiss her flush for cold instead of rage.

He fills in her silence with a huff of laughter. “You should know what you’re getting yourself into, comrade,” he tells her, pushing off of his perch. “If you’re going to go around, telling these sorts of stories -”

Anya locks her gaze with his as he turns.

His voice dies.

She lifts an eyebrow.

For a moment, he looks as though she’s smacked him: eyes wide, mouth falling open ever so slightly. A touch of color floods into his cheeks, but it’s gone in an instant as he composes himself, looking down at the floor and brushing his hands over the rough cotton of his coat.

“It’s you,” he manages, voice weak.

Anya resists the urge to let her eyebrow climb higher. She considers him, then glances over to his desk. He’s left a cup of tea untouched next to his telephone alongside an empty bowl. Anya frowns when she doesn’t see any sugar.

No luxuries, then. Shame; it would have been easier to hate him.

“Are you alright?” he asks, taking a step forward. Anya snaps her gaze back to him and watches as his awkward shuffle comes to a halt. He lifts his hands in front of him, a mockery of surrender presented to a wounded animal.

Anya doesn’t allow herself to snarl. She _doesn’t_.

“What are the charges?” she demands.

The deputy commissioner blinks. “Charges?”

Anya’s brow crease. She hesitates, then takes a step further into the office. The deputy commissioner doesn’t try and stop her; in his stuttering, she catches sight of his last name emblazoned on the badge below his rank.

Vaganov. She knows that name.

“Charges,” Vaganov repeats, shaking his head. “There will be no charges; only a warning – for now.” Some of his previous, lighthearted menace returns, though it’s ruined by the curve of his smile. It’s a smile Anya recognizes; confident, almost lupine, ruined by the gentle touch of reassurance.

She frowns, almost by accident, and sees some of the light in Vaganov’s eyes die.

“What’s your name?” he asks her.

“Anya.” She leaves off the “sir” and watches his face to see if he notices.

Something twitches just behind his eyes, but it’s there and gone in a moment. “The little street sweeper.” He sounds fond.

Anya narrows her eyes, but in the next beat, Vaganov is motioning her towards a chair facing his desk.

“You’re shaking,” he says, and the wolf in his face is kind. “Just like last time. Sit. Let me make you some tea.”

(Wolves, Anya knows, are not inherently kind. The last wolf she’d met had been graying with soft curves; it’d been a shock when she’d invited Anya into her den. Still, she’d gone, eaten her borscht, and spent the night with her back pressed to the woman’s front, her heart beating too quickly for her to properly sleep. She’d left in the morning, groggy, with yellow eyes on her mind and a lock of her hair wrapped around the woman’s wrist.)

Anya eyes the offered pot and cup and bites her bottom lip. Vaganov softens, though, and reaches into his desk, still waiting, still coaxing. He pulls out a lemon, then takes a knife from his belt, cutting slices for the both of them. He presses one into the bottom of her cup, then nudges it towards her.

Anya stares. Then, she sits.

(Vaganov, she realizes, as he pours her tea, is not a wolf, despite his teeth and wary eyes. He simply wants to be.)

Anya doesn’t smile, but the muscles in her cheeks twitch. She watches Vaganov pour her cup, then accepts it gladly.

It takes an effort for her to allow her fingers to brush against his knuckles. It’s worth it to watch his lips fall open again, though he’s quick to mask the expression.

Something young and viscous in Anya’s chest rumbles with satisfaction.

The tea is good. Sweet. She takes a long drink as Vaganov adds lemon to his own cup, humming under her breath. The glances he throws her way are – weighted, but it is not a pressure she is unable to bear.

“Comrade,” he says, tentatively clearing his throat. “You must know how dangerous it is, the game you’re playing. These fits of imagination – they’re not meant for a good and loyal Russian.”

“They’re just games,” Anya tells him, and the lie tastes like sugar. “Surely there’s no harm in games.”

Vaganov has yet to sit, so Anya looks up at him through her lashes and imagines what he sees. Let Vaganov think himself the wolf, and her the passive sheep; he’s looking at her already with a pity that makes her wince; pity that belongs to the girl found in the snow bank, not the woman she’s become. It’s dangerous, the way he looks at her, the things his pride could let him do, but he only shuffles, only stares.

Anya tilts her head, then rights it, catching herself in time.

A curious creature, this Vaganov.

He fiddles with the buttons of his coat as she drinks, as though the office has grown too warm. Anya watches his gloved fingers and taps her nails against her cup.

“There could be,” Gleb says, and it’s the warning growl that drags her gaze upward. She’s startled by a shock of fear; wolf or not, there’s determination in those dark eyes of his.

“What will happen to me?” she asks. It comes out softer than she intends.

Vaganov pulls back, and Anya almost feels guilty, tongue heavy in her mouth. He stares at her for longer than he should, long enough that the feral thing in her chest starts to squirm.

“I don’t know,” Vaganov murmurs, at last. “Though I suppose you could bat your eyes at them.”

Startled, Anya laughs. “What do you mean?”

Vaganov rubs the back of his neck, the motion almost endearing. “Your eyes,” he repeats, not quite managing to look away. “A man could get lost in them.”

His tone’s too light, but Anya doesn’t press him. She lets the moment carry for one breath, then two, before setting her half-empty cup down on the desk. The sound of it startles him and lets her steel herself and rise.

Vaganov doesn’t try to stop her, though the warmth of him brings her up short. Anya nearly gasps; even across the desk, he’s like a fire. It’s a wonder, she thinks, stifling a groan in her throat, that he’s not sweating.

“Thank you for your warning,” she says, inclining her head with respect, “and for the tea, as well.”

He says – something, but she pulls away from the desk and is shocked by a sudden rush of cold. Her hands begin to shake at once. Anya grits her teeth and tells herself it isn’t fear as she turns her back on the deputy commissioner (a wolf should never look away first).

She only just catches herself from walking out of the office, her fingers cresting the door’s handle. Anya stops, then glances over her shoulder to find Gleb frozen in place.

(She doesn’t see the hand he’d raised to try and catch her; he’s tucked it behind his back, nails digging into his gloved palm.)

“Am I free to go?” Anya asks.

Vaganov hesitates, then nods. “Be careful of your eyes, comrade,” he manages, though he sounds as though he’s choking. “They’ll give you away.”

Anya remembers yellow, burned into her brain and against her skin. She presses down on the door to the office.

The handle jiggles, but doesn’t budge.

Anya frowns. She tries the handle again, confusion giving way to a scowl.

“What’s the matter?”

“Your door is locked, comrade,” Anya replies, blowing her hair out of her face. “I didn’t know that you intended to keep me here.”

It’s almost worth the hassle to listen to Vaganov sputter. Anya tucks away a smile and turns so she can face him again. “I don’t suppose you have a key?”

“Of course.” Vaganov wrenches open another of his desk drawers and swears under his breath. “My men shouldn’t have locked that behind them; I’ll have to talk to them about that.”

He crosses the room in a few long strides. Anya shifts to the side and lets him invade her space; he doesn’t seem to notice until the sleeve of his coat brushes the rough spin of her own.

The look he throws her is – startled. A deer in the darkness.

Anya tilts her head and smiles, too coy for innocence, though she takes care to hide her canines.

He freezes.

She studies him.

There is a shyness about him tucked into his embarrassment; she’s startled by the urge to reach out a hand, to press her fingers to the fabric of his gloves or to wind them through the locks of his hair. She imagines marking him on his neck, just below his collar, to show him what real teeth feel like; she imagines the sounds he’d make, lying beneath her on his desk.

He must see something in her, because he swallows, hard. Anya watches his adam’s apple bob and licks her lips.

Vaganov fumbles the key in the lock. It drops to the ground, but he doesn’t chase it.

She’s too close. She shouldn’t do this. Anya watches the way Vaganov sways towards her and rails against the rumble in her stomach.

One hand rises, all the same, and redoes the top button of Vaganov’s coat. Anya keeps her eyes fixed on the flashing gold and doesn’t see the red spreading up Vaganov’s throat; doesn’t see his mouth part, his tongue flicker; doesn’t see him force his eyes closed or his hands into fists at his side.

“Thank you, comrade,” he says, bending at last. Anya’s hand drops as he does and brushes a strand of freshly washed hair. It’s too soft to the touch; she nearly gasps for the feel of it, bites her tongue to keep from reaching out again.

Vaganov gathers his key and undoes the lock to the room. When he takes a steadying step away, Anya mourns the warmth he takes with him.

It shouldn’t be endearing, the way he studies the toes of his boots.

Anya twitches forward and smiles at the man pretending to be a wolf. “Thank you, comrade,” she parrots, though her tone is not unkind. Vaganov lifts his gaze to look at her as she sweeps out of the office, and Anya lets the weight of it settle on her shoulders like a well-managed pack.

It lingers, long after the office door has swung shut, following her down into the streets and back to Yusupov Palace. When night falls, Anya ignores the playful calls of her odd troop of companions and folds in on herself, hands shaking, body craving a warmth that burns without blistering her skin.


	2. Gleb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look. It's smut. Ish.

Gleb stays too late in his office, staring at a cold cup of tea and willing his hands to stop shaking.

It’s absurd. He finished his work hours ago; there are no more rounds to make, no more papers to sign. Yet he remains, ignoring the cot in his room a few blocks away in favor of a cup, this room, the faint hint of sweat and street and _Anya_ lingering in the air.

Gleb takes a shaky breath and closes his eyes.

Anya – _Anya_. A little street sweeper she may be, but there'd been something lingering behind that face, those beautiful eyes and the mouth that he knew would taste like summer on his tongue. Gleb bites down on his inner cheek; he shouldn’t think of things like this, but he can’t help it. Leningrad, outside his window, is dark, and she’s an indulgence he doesn’t want to deny.

Gleb lets himself sink into the chair Anya had sat in and presses his palms against his eyes.

The way she’d looked at him – he considers himself a strong-willed man, a man of presence and power, but – but she’d looked at him with the ease of an apex predator observing her dinner, or an annoyance in the midst of a hunt. There’d been fear (there’s always fear), but there’d been anticipation, and the taste of it -

It had been too much. He’d kept the desk between them for as long as he could, let himself consider and be considered, in return. There was little peering to be found between them, though; despite his rank and the command of his voice, it was Anya who’d commanded the room. Only propriety – survival instinct – had kept her from walking from his office on a whim; that and a locked door.

The memory almost makes him smile. Anya, it seems, is not a woman who is meant to ask men’s permission to exist.

The thought makes him groan. Gleb leans back in her chair and twitches, letting a hand dance idly over his thigh. The other runs through his hair, shoving it out of his eyes.

If he tries, he can still feel her hand spreading heat over his chest, into the hollow of his throat. She’d been too close to his pulse for comfort, and yet, it had taken effort to keep himself from pressing himself closer. She had to have known, of course; no matter how wide she kept her eyes nor how soft she kept her mouth, there was no mistaking the way she tracked him. She had to have known.

Gleb grits his teeth, but he can’t deny the rush of pleasure that drives him to spread his knees. He palms himself through regulation trousers and remembers the glint in her eyes over her cup of tea; the soft wetness of her lips after her every sip. He lets his mouth fall open, remembering her pressing into his space; lets himself imagine the brush of her hands beyond the buttons of his coat, down the fabric, over his shoulders, around the proud curve of his neck and jaw.

He knows, without question, that she’d have tasted sweet if he’d kissed her. The mere thought – his body curving, her up on her toes, soft mouths and gentle noises – has him undoing the buttons of his pants. The press of his hand stands in for the touch of her thigh. He imagines offering her his own to grind herself against, imagines holding her hips and letting her lean him against his desk. If he sat, he could lift her and let her settle her knees on either side of him. They could lift her skirts and escape from the winter cold; he could bury himself in her neck and let her whisper in his ear, gentle threats as her nails scratched against his skin.

Gleb tastes blood as he bites his lip to keep from crying out. The blue of her eyes is enough to take him under; he wasn’t flattering her, saying that a man could drown in them; he could feel himself going and couldn’t find the will to make himself stop.

It’s too easy to come to the thought of her on top of him. The pleasure whites out his brain, and for a moment, the world is hazy and warm all over. There is no sting; there is no shame; there’s only the smell of summer, sweat, and Anya lingering in the chair and burning into Gleb’s memory.

When he opens his eyes, he finds himself staring at the tea cup, still half full and sitting on his desk. Gleb scowls and takes his hand from his pants, wiping slick on his thigh before forcing himself upright. It is time, he tells himself, to start for home. He’ll be back in the office before the sun has risen; it would be foolish for him to waste what few hours of sleep he can still manage.

(Sleep doesn’t come easy. When he wakes, he will call out, and the name on his lips will taste like summer.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought!


End file.
